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Episode 56: “Quadrant of the Cybernetic Dead”

Scene 1 - Earth spacedock. The camera pans around various parts of it, showing no-names hurrying around while the lights flash red and civilians carrying baggage walk down corridors.

Fleet Admiral Spot (voiceover) - Chief of Defence Staff’s log, stardate 60078.1. With the fall of the fringe colonies and the destruction of the Second Fleet, our last line of defence against the zomborg onslaught is gone. They’ve assimilated nearly a dozen Alpha Quadrant worlds, and it will only be a matter of time before they reach Earth. I’ve used the FAI emergency signal to alert the rest of the galaxy to our downfall. Hopefully they’ll have time to flee. None of our weapons seem to even faze them. It’s almost like the powers that be decided that the Borg had become total pussies and created these guys to fill in the gap in the “invincible enemy” category. I fully expect my next log entry to contain the words “blarg” and “braaaaiiiiiinnnnnnsssssssss.”

The camera goes to the USS Saratoga, which is in orbit around the spacedock. The camera flies into a window and into a science lab somewhere on the ship. Genocide, Blavik, and Garell are standing around a table, which is covered in hundreds of odd looking components.

Genocide - It took... a day to replicate just these parts... How are we going to make enough bombs to defeat the zombies in time?

Blavik - I have a hypothesis which may allow us to use only one to neutralize the entire zomborg hive. However, I will need to collect more data before I totally ruin the ending.

Garell - Either way, we need to buy some time. The zomborg ship could be here in less than an hour if they wanted to.

Genocide - Well, I for on intend to go down fighting. Let’s finish this thing. What first?

Genocide - Damn it, I’m not good at this! I’m going to leave this to you eggheads and go blow the unliving shit out of something.

He drops the hypospanner and leaves the room.

Garell - Eggheads!?!

Oppppppening creeeeeddddits..... That’s why they’d sound like if they were traveling at relativistic velocities. :P

Scene 2 - Somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. A green portal flashes open and three Borg cubes drop out of transwarp, still towing the USS Celestial. Two of them deactivate their tractor beam holds on the Federation ship and move off, while the third continues towing the Celestial towards... you guessed it... the Borg Unicomplex. All nice and not blown up. On the Celestial’s bridge...

Baque - I thought that thing exploded?

Sa’lol - We don’t know that the whole thing was destroyed. Remember that Borg systems are very redundant.

Mittens - Because that’s the one reason the Collective would bring us here, duh?

Senseless - I have a really bad feeling about this... we should never have allowed them to bring us here. Three cubes is bad enough, but we’re facing the most powerful structure in the known universe. We’d last ten seconds in a fire fight.

Mittens - More like two.

Tener - Greeeeeat.

Dr. Puker - To answer all of your questions, yes, it indeed does hurt to be a drone. They do not use any anesthetic during the assimilation process, so you get to enjoy the sensation of having a power drill plunged through your eye, brain surgery, having several of your major organs extracted through a tube, and, in nine assimilation cases out of ten, amputation of one or both arms.

Everyone stares at him.

Righteous - I think I’d rather die.

Puker - Ah! But the Borg can reanimate most corpses within a few minutes of death if they feel the need.

Mittens - Doctor? Shut up. Now, they’re expecting me to meet with them directly. I’d feel much better if I had an armed escort, though.

Senseless - Lieutenant—

Tener - I know, I know... go on the dangerous missions, babysit the cats, etc, etc.

He grabs a compression phaser rifle and some other things from one of the bridge’s weapons lockers.

Borg (comm) - Mittens of the Feline Association of Influence, you will transport to coordinates 095 mark 478 mark 662, using a transporter modulation frequency of 0.008 terrahertz. Resistance is futile. Comply immediately.

Senseless - Well, good luck, we’ll try to have a ship here for you when you get back. Ensign, energize. Um, no promises though.

Casey somehow remembers how to use the transporters and Tener and Mittens are beamed away. They rematerialize inside the Unicomplex. Mittens instantly taps a button on the front of his cat collar and a light starts blinking. He takes an identical collar out of somewhere and passes it to Tener.

The Queen’s head and shoulders slowly descend from the upper reaches of the room. A floor panel opens and her robotic body parts extend and assemble themselves.

Queen - And you bring with you the humans... how intriguing... this we did not expect.

The Queen’s head lowers into her body and the latch things grip it into place. However, something is not right. The Queen looks down.

Queen - Ah way to go, a-holes! You put my body on backwards!

Tener and Mittens stifle laughs as the Collective cringes while the Queen rips her head off and tries to spin it around. It doesn’t quite work as planned and the Queen’s head gets dropped to the floor. Her body blindly walks around bumping into things. By this time, Tener and Mittens are rolling on the floor laughing.

Smash! Crash! Bang! The Queen finally manages to get her body back under control and is quickly reassembled. Tener and Mittens are close to tears at this point, but manage to put on straight faces... sort of.

Queen - Lousy good for nothing... There, that’s better. Nothing around here has worked right since we rebuilt it. Now, where was I?

Mittens - You were about to make a subtle threat implying that at any moment you could assimilate our ship.

Queen - Indeed... we’ve been working on a new method of assimilation. Ironically, it was your own neurolytic pathogen that gave us the inspiration... we’ve adapted it to infect anything that isn’t Borg with a nanoprobe virus. We could easily transport it through your shields and assimilate your entire ship.

Tener - Go ahead, I don’t care.

The other two both look at him.

Mittens - That’s a lie and we both know it.

Tener - Meh, reverse psychology usually works.

Mittens - Let’s cut to the chase: There’s an insanely powerful group of quasi-Borg beings which are neither alive nor fully dead who are slowly assimilating the entire galaxy. We have to stop them before they become too powerful.

Queen - We are aware. Species 13748, a cybernetic, viral-based, parasitic lifeform. You refer to them as the “zomborg” collective. They already possess propulsion technology well beyond our own, but their vessels are inferior. They will be assimilated.

Mittens - Yes, yes, that’s all well and good, but if you don’t stop them soon—

Queen - A vessel was dispatched as soon as we assimilated the data in your ship’s memory banks. It should be reaching the Alpha Quadrant shortly.

Tener (to Mittens) - Since when can they read data right out of our computers? I thought they couldn’t do that? If they could, why did they bother working with Voyager during the 8472 crisis?

Queen - For kicks, mainly... and to help them get an interesting main character... got rid of Kes, so all things considered, losing so many ships was well worth it.

Mittens - You guys really do have sick senses of humour.

Queen - Yeah, well, you are what you assimilate.

Hive Mind (lots of voices, you know) - Cube 67127 is approaching spatial grid 554. Vessels detected. 14 ships belonging to the United Federation of Planets, one belonging to species 13748. Preparing for assimilation.

Tener - Wait a damn minute! You assimilating us wasn’t part of the deal.

Mittens - Now Lieutenant, they’ll have ample time to escape if they’re not stupid...

A holographic screen appears against one wall showing the view from the cube as it drops out of transwarp. It does a sensor sweep of the system and data regarding each ship appears to the left of the screen.

Ketrell - Alright, signal the fleet to get ready to engage the zomborg ship. With the Borg helping us there’s no way the zomborg could survive.

Lieutenant Frell (helm girl) - What happens when we destroy them and the Borg turn on us?

Ketrell - Meh, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

The camera goes to watch the cube approach the pyramid. Back at the unicomplex, the view is showing the zomborg ship changing course to intercept the cube.

Hive Mind - We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

The pyramid spins and aims its point at the oncoming cube, then fires. The camera watches as the cube blows up real good. The camera goes to the unicomplex, where the Queen’s, Mittens’, and Tener’s eyes go wide as the screen turns to static. The camera then goes to the bridge of Solaris, where the crew are having similar reactions.

Ren - Well fuck that!!

Ketrell- Helm, get us out of here, maximum—

Lieutenant Tevarin - Wait! The pyramid ship... it’s changing course... It just went to hyperwarp.

Ren - Not quite. The Collective stores all their technology on isolated networks encrypted with 2048 gigabit encryption keys. Separated from the hive mind, the zomborg nanoprobes don’t possess the proper public keys to get access to that technology.

Adair - So if they infect the collective, they’ll get access to cutting beams, advanced tractor beams, time travel... and pie?

Ren - Yeah, plus their population will increase by trillions of converted drones.

Ketrell - So what can we do?

Ren - We can all get so hammered that we won’t feel it when they eat our brains. That’s my plan anyway. Computer, replicate three bottles of Romulan Ale, a barrel of Klingon blood wine and your finest Scotch.

Scene 3 - Back in the Unicomplex, Tener and Mittens look on nervously as the collective reels from the instant destruction of one of their ships... actually seeing as it’s happened numerous times before I don’t know what they’re so irked about. Seriously, those things are supposed to be able to function with more than 70% of them destroyed... wtf?

BANG! He puts a bullet right through the Queen’s head. The Queen crumples to the floor, but the drones keep coming.

Tener - Hey, what the fuck! Why aren’t they all dying!?!

Queen’s Voice (disembodied) - You think in such four-dimensional terms...

Mittens (dodging a drone that’s trying to grab him) - The Queen drone is just an extension of the Queen’s consciousness. Destroying it has no effect.

Tener - But why in First Contact did—

Mittens (clawing at a drone’s leg) - The collective was tiny then. The Queen was being used as the central processing unit for their hive mind.

Tener - Ah. Answers that question.

He empties the rest of the clip into the oncoming drones, but more enter the room.

Tener - Think James, think! How can I turn this into a party? Wait, wrong commercial. Oh, what the hell...

He throws the handgun at an oncoming drone, then picks up his compression rifle. He then runs over and starts beating the shit out of the central alcove with the useless weapon. The drones start ignoring him and all surround Mittens, as the lights in the room start flickering.

Queen’s Voice - Species 001, your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

Tener stops in mid wield and lets his jaw drop.

Tener - Cats are species 001!?!

Before Mittens can answer, they’re both teleported away in a Federation transporter beam.

Scene 4 - On the spacedock. Fleet Admiral Spot is trotting along a corridor. The turns into a room where a no-name is working at a desk.

Spot - How much longer?

NoName #1 - We just started! I’d say another month assuming we have access to the right materials.

Spot - Damn it, not quick enough! I’m authorizing the shutdown of every other construction project you guys have going while you finish building my damned flagship!

NoName #1 - Look, it’s not like we have a big giant Flourish-class-starship-shaped printing press we can just turn on and make a ship.

Spot - No, but you do have a big honking industrial replicator that I’ve seen spit out runabouts like popcorn.

NoName #1 - In order to use it to build a ship as big as the one you want, we’d have to suck enough energy to power a small colony.

Spot (turning to leave) - Tell Mars to break out the candles and get my flagship built!

She storms out of the room and hits the “slam doors for dramatic effect” button on her way out. For some reason, that button is only three inches off the floor on every door on the spacedock.

NoName #1 - Ah man, I’m gonna miss Survivor because of all this... and why do I get the feeling she just wants it done so she can run away and leave us all to the mercy of the zomborg?

Scene 5 - In another part of the Spacedock, Blavik and Garell are sitting at a table covered in thousands of little pieces, but a big, fist sized chunk of something sits in the middle of the table. Suddenly, the door opens and Genocide pushes a Bajoran Starfleet blue-shirt inside.

Doctor Jelor (episode 38? Remember? Jeez...) - Hey what the, you said this was an all-you-can-eat buffet! This looks more like a workshop.

Genocide - Brilliant deduction, Sherlock, now get to work helping us build this thing.

Jelor looks at the mess on the table.

Jelor - What are you trying to make, a warp core?

Blavik - We’re attempting to produce a matter inversion device.

Garell - They’re called antimatter inversion bombs.

Blavik - Yes, but “matter inversion” is more accurate.

Jelor - You’re trying to build an antimatter bomb!?! What the hell do you need me for! I’m a peace-loving, Prophet-worshipping man of the people, and I won’t help you!

Garell - If you don’t, the zomborg collective will turn us all into mindless, cybernetic zombies.

Jelor (picking up the completed piece) - And how is this thing supposed to defeat them? They’ve got nearly a dozen planets conquered by now.

Genocide - Our mildly annoying Vulcan colleague here says she has an idea but won’t tell us it for the sake of the plot.

Blavik - Actually, it’s a terribly contrived idea, but I don’t want to have people lose interest this early on in the episode.

Genocide - Look, ever heard of a Doctor Ketrell Eden? Lived a few centuries ago? He designed these things in an effort to make light-weight easy-to-use hair care products. However, used a certain way, you can blow up planets with them.

Jelor - So what the hell do you need me for again?

Garell - The damn thing’s so complicated we can’t make heads or tails of it. I mean, you’d think with a Vulcan on our team...

Garell (turning back to Jelor) - Look, as much as I don’t want you here, we really could use some help. We just got a report saying that that frigging pyramid blew a Borg cube up in a single shot. Weapons that powerful haven’t been seen since “Endgame"!

Jelor - Alright, I’ll help, but only on the condition that you’ll agree to destroy all this knowledge after we’ve defeated the zomborgs.

Scene 6 - Back on the Celestial, it’s under heavy fire as it dodges between substructures. On the exploding bridge, everyone is present.

Righteous - Gosh, what did you say that made them so angry?

Mittens - We didn’t say anything! The zomborg blew up their cube in a single shot and then set a course right for this spot! They’ve decided the only thing they can do to save themselves is assimilate everything they can get their tubules into.

Senseless - How long until we can jump into the slipstream?

Baque - Assuming we don’t get vapourized, another minute.

Sa’lol - Shouldn’t we maybe return fire or something?

Tener - Maybe we should just hand over Mittens here and they’ll probably let us go on our merry way.

Mittens - Shut up Lieutenant.

Tener - Did he tell you guys that cats are species 001?

Righteous - Um... and that implies...?

Mittens (sigh) - It implies that we created the Borg, and yes, it’s true.

Mittens - Oh, be quiet. Anyway, we made robots to clean our litterboxes for us. We programmed them with one prerogative: Perfection. However, something went screwy and a few of them got away from us. Driven by that simple instruction, they began to assimilate all technologies they came across in an effort to achieve perfection.

Mittens - We were leaving the galaxy at the time. Wasn’t big enough for us anymore.

Tener - The Milky Way wasn’t big enough for you..... riiiiight...

Mittens - Well, it would have been if the stupid warp-capable cultures didn’t start popping up everywhere. We didn’t use warp, did Spot mention that?

Righteous - No, but the neat flashback did.

Mittens - Yeah. So anyway, we figured that one of the humanoid races would easily stop the Borg, and headed for the galaxy you know as M101, over 27 million lightyears away.

Sa’lol - M101... isn’t that the one that supposably has over a trillion stars in it?

Mittens - Yeah... plenty of space. Also a supermassive black hole in the middle to power our civilization. Subspace signals don’t go that far, so the bulk of the feline species has no idea the Borg are such a threat now.

Casey - Well, like, they were a threat.

Mittens - The zomborgs almost baffle the mind at their abilities. They’ve done more in a few months than the Borg did in millennia, technology wise.

Senseless - What baffles me is why the Borg let us go so easily. I mean, didn’t they assimilate quantum slipstream technology?

Boom, ship rocks, sparks.

Righteous - Oh thanks a lot, Jack, now that Murphy guy is laughing at us again.

Tener - There’s... thirty... cubes... trailing us...

Boom, ship rocks, sparks again.

Sa’lol - Long range sensors are detecting even more gaining on us quickly. Looks like they’ve perfected the technology, they’re at least a hundred times faster than us. There’s no way to outrun them.

Righteous - Welp, time to say prayers then.

Senseless - Wait, I have an idea... Toc, are you still compensating for phase variances?

Baque - Yeah, why?

Senseless - What would happen if you stopped?

Baque - Uh... the slipstream would collapse? And we’d die?

Mittens - I think I see where you’re going with this... the Borg would be destroyed as well, since they’re behind us. In order to prevent that, they’d have to start generating their own slipstream, and since they’re so much larger, the energy requirements would—

The ship starts shaking, but the viewscreen continues to show torpedoes narrowly pass them.

Sa’lol - The variance is approaching critical!

Baque - The slipstream is collapsing!

Tener - The leading cube is dropping its shields! The others are falling back!

The camera goes into space above the Celestial and turns to watch the approaching cubes. Suddenly, the slipstream narrows and the second-closest one is crushed and destroyed. Debris pelts the cubes following it, and they slow down. Then, the slipstream in front of the Celestial exponentially expands in diameter, to accommodate the cubes. On the bridge, everyone is cheering as they watch the slipstream expand, when suddenly they’re all thrown back in their seats or into the back wall as the ship accelerates, and the shaking doesn’t stop.

Baque - We’ve just increased our speed a hundred fold!

Senseless - Good... how much longer until we reach the Alpha Quadrant?

Baque - Another five minutes at least, at this speed.

Righteous - What should we do about the Borg things?

Senseless - Hmm... set a course for the first system the zomborg ships assimilated. Let them deal with the Borg.

Tener - I hope we don’t regret this.

Boom, ship rocks, no sparks.

Senseless - I thought their weapons were offline?

Tener - They are, they’re just throwing insults at us.

Righteous - Damn it, I thought we were immune to those by now!

Pause, everyone looks at him.

Mittens - He meant they’re just using whatever left over power they have to basically piss us off some more.

Scene 7 - On the spacedock, in the science lab. Garell, Blavik, and Jelor work on the device while Genocide reads tactical data that’s streaming in from around the Federation.

Genocide - The zombies just assimilated Wolf 359! That puts them less than 8 lightyears from Earth! We’re out of time!

He turns around to find Garell, Blavik, and Jelor standing around the table, smiling. Sitting before them is a cylindrical device about 40 cm high and 30 in diameter, covered in tubes and blinking lights.

Genocide - Wow... you’re done. I always wondered what those things looked like too. Wait, how the heck is that supposed to be used as a lightweight hair-care product?

To answer, Blavik does her best to mess up her hair, then picks up the device by the top handle and holds it near her head and pushes a button. Her hair instantly goes back into a nice neat Starfleet standard issue bun.

Genocide - Right...

Garell - We just need a deployment method and a plan, and we’re all set. Now, Lieutenant, tell us your idea.

Blavik - Using logical deduction, I’ve combined two known facts: The zombies were destroyed when the original zombie was killed, indicating some sort of link between the virus particles. Secondly, the Borg rely on a central nexus, or in many cases a “Queen” to regulate them. It is probable that both figures have been combined in this new hybrid species. If we destroy that drone, it is probable that both the organic and technologic aspects of the zomborgs will shut down.

Genocide - Good idea, but how do we find this drone?

Blavik - The zomborg collective would want to keep it as far away from danger as possible. We’ll find him or her on the first planet they assimilated.

Baque - Annnnd on that note, dropping out of slipstream in five... four... three... two... one!

Baque hits some buttons and the ship drops out of slipstream. Almost immediately, it starts to shake violently and consoles explode.

Righteous - Oh yeah! I’d forgotten the Borg were chasing us.

Baque - Dumbass.

Senseless - Evasive manoeuvres. Sa’lol, how many ships made it?

Sa’lol - About... twenty.

Senseless - Fuck.

The Ops console starts frantically beeping.

Casey - Um... like, guys? We’ve, like, got more company.

Before anyone can ask, three pyramid ships fly past the screen.

Righteous - It’s the battle of the geometric solids! And we’re an oblong diamond shaped thing! I feel like we’re so out of place here.

Sa’lol - Not really, considering we’re shaped like a mix between a Sovereign-class and the B2 stealth bomber.

The comm system activates.

Borg (comm) - We are the Borg. All your base are belong to us. Resistance is futile.

Righteous - Well, I’d like to think we made a difference here today... helmboy, set a course for the nearest starbase, warp seven.

Baque - Can’t. The warp drive is conveniently offline.

Senseless - Bridge to engineering, what’s wrong with the warp drive?

NoName #2 (comm) - How the hell should we know, we’re just a bunch of dumb no-names. Our only skill is dying dramatically. Ah! Plasma leak! Ahhhhh!!!!! (Bzzzzzzzzzzzzmorestatic).

Senseless - Damn it.

Sa’lol - Sir... there’s another Federation ship out there...

Tener - Is it one big enough to save our sorry butts from vapourization?

Sa’lol - No. It’s the USS Halfass.

The rest of the bridge crew groan.

Baque - Well, that mucks up that last hope.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the USS Halfass, Genocide is at the tactical station, Blavik is piloting, and Garell is doing her best to keep the ship from spontaneously exploding. On the viewscreen, the Borg and the zomborg are having it out like two pissed off fanatical Third World nations. Pieces of blackish-green and blackish-blue metal litters the space around the planet, which is firing a planetary based weapon at anything that moves. The Borg seem to have adapted to the zomborg weaponry, to an extent, and most of the cubes are still active.

Genocide - Man, what a lovely day to blow the living shit out of something...

Garell - Our engines are overheating, Lieutenant.

Blavik - Most illogical, seeing as we’re not even going full speed.

Garell - Yeah, I’d really like to find the idiots who built this thing and have a word with them...

Garell - Alright, there’s a subterranean cavern about three kilometres beneath the surface. Looks to be free of bio-signatures, but we know the zomborg machinery is just as lethal as they are, so be prepared for anything.

Genocide reaches under his console and picks up the inversion bomb.

Genocide - It is going to look so bad if this thing is a dud.

He tosses the bomb to Garell and then picks up some weapons, including a TR-116 projectile rifle and his flak cannon.

Genocide - Let’s roll.

Garell and Genocide move to stand in the middle of the bridge while Blavik works the transporter controls. As soon as the two are beamed away, consoles start beeping like mad.

Blavik - Fascinating...

She quickly beams herself down, moments before a Borg torpedo hits the Halfass and nearly blows it to pieces, even though the shields were back at maximum.

In the cave, deep underground, Garell is busy setting up the bomb while Genocide pans around with the TR-116 visor in place. They both turn when they see Blavik materialize.

Genocide - Um... why’d you leave the ship?

Blavik - It was seconds from being destroyed.

Garell - You mean we’re stuck here?

Blavik - It certainly appears so.

Genocide - Well, if we’re going to die, I for one intend to take as much of the universe with me as possible. Plus, we’ve got company, so we’re out of time anyway.

He tosses the rifle to Blavik, who quickly begins attempting to snipe zomborg drones. Genocide runs over to Garell, pushes her out of the way, and hits the “Detonate” button on the device.

Genocide - There goes everything...

Nothing happens.

Garell - Well... that was anticlimactic.

Then, gradually, a barely-audible hum can be heard coming from the device. It slowly gets louder.

Genocide - You forgot it takes awhile for these things to charge up, didn’t you?

Before she can retort, a door breaks open and mindless cybernetic drones pour into the room. Genocide whips out his flak cannon and starts gibbing them.

Genocide - I COME TO BLOW UP PLANETS AND KICK ASS... AND I’VE GOT 47 SECONDS TO DO THE LATTER!

Garell and Blavik simply hide behind some rocks while Genocide enjoys himself way too much.

Scene 9 - Bridge of the Celestial.

Sa’lol - Sir! I just detected a subspace beacon coming from the planet... somewhere underground. I’m detecting three faint Starfleet transponder signals in there too.

Senseless - Get us to that planet!

Back on the planet, Genocide is quickly running out of ammo and the zombies are quickly running out of patience. Snake-like black tubes are slithering into the room, trying to get around behind them as Genocide blasts them into pieces. One tries to get him from above and he turns around just in time to shoot it. However, another one comes from the door.

Garell, Blavik - LOOK OUT!

Genocide spins on the spot and puts his finger on the trigger just as the tube accelerates for a strike. Suddenly, all three officers are beamed away. The zombies continue into the room. Onboard the Celestial, Genocide finishes accidentally plastering the transporter chief onto the wall and hits his commbadge.

Genocide - Bridge, excellent timing, but we’ve got about twenty seconds before this whole place blows to kingdom come.

Senseless (comm) - Warp drive is offline!

Garell - Beam me to Engineering!

As Casey complies with the order, Genocide turns to Blavik.

Genocide - Wow, I wonder if there’s any possible way this could get any more dramatic.

Scene 10 - Earth. The camera pans around it and passes by dozens of disabled or destroyed Federation starships. It goes by the Spacedock, which has a large hole through the docking bay and its lights are flickering. The camera finally stops at a zomborg pyramid ship which is rotating into optimal firing position, aiming its bottom directly at Earth. On the spacedock, Fleet Admiral Spot stands amid the wreckage that was once Ops and watches out a hull breach as the zomborg ship powers up its weapon.

Everyone kind of stands still, not sure what to do. Garell gets pissed and whips out a phaser.

Garell - You’ve got two seconds before people start dying!

The engineering crew scramble like bats out of hell.

Meanwhile, on the planet, in the cave, the zomborgs are examining the device, which is now humming very loudly and lights are blinking all over it. One picks up a rock and is about to smash the device when suddenly, the humming and blinking... stop. A faint shimmer flickers through the room for only an instant, and then there is nothing. The entire room is silent, and the drones just look at each other. Then, one by one, they look at the ground, and see that the pebbles are bouncing slightly on the rock floor. A low, distant roar can be heard coming from all around them. One of the drones has the common sense enough to say:

Zomborg #1: Uh oh...

Up in Main Engineering, Garell slams shut a hatch on the side of the warp core and hits her combadge.

Garell - Bridge, get us out of here!

Meanwhile, on the bridge, the crew are watching a rear view as the ship heads away from the planet. Suddenly, there’s a massive flash of light somewhere on the other side of the planet.

As she finishes saying it, the planet shatters like a ball of glass. A spherical shockwave of blinding white light expands towards them.

Garell (comm) - Bridge, get us out of here!

The USS Celestial jumps to warp nanoseconds before the shockwave would have hit them. The explosion continues into the system, blowing apart moons and asteroids, and ships. The Borg cubes and zomborg pyramids cease to exist in the blink of an eye. Eight minutes in real time, but a few seconds later for dramatic reasons, the shockwave hits the system’s sun. The camera watches in slow motion as the entire star is flattened into a pancake by the force of the antimatter explosion. With so much force pushing on it in such a short space of time, the star’s entire supply of hydrogen instantly fuses, unleashing five billion years of potential energy in the span of a millisecond. The hypernova then proceeds to vapourize everything in the system and keeps going...

On the spacedock, Spot is watching remorsefully as the zomborg pyramid finishes charging and opens its firing iris. However, just when it should have fired, the entire ship loses power and just sort of drifts.

Spot - What the... YES!

Meanwhile, on the Celestial’s bridge, the entire senior staff plus Mittens are present watching as subspace telemetry shows just how big the explosion was.

Righteous - A cubic lightyear? Is that a lot of space to destroy?

Genocide - My purpose in life has been fulfilled! It’s all icing on the cake after this!

Sa’lol - The explosion caused the sun to go nova.

Senseless - Is there any chance the zomborg could have survived that?

Sa’lol - None. The matter in their nano virus probe thingies would have been turned into energy by now. Hey, what happened to that ship you three came in?

Genocide - The Halfass? Destroyed, hopefully.

Casey - No, I, like, locked a tractor beam on it when we flew past it. It’s right behind us.

The rest of the crew, save for Sa’lol, groan.

Senseless - Damn it, Casey...

Casey - Like, what did I do wrong?

Righteous - That ship is so cramped and smells like burnt metal.

Puker - Regardless... I believe there’s a lesson we can learn from all this.

Garell - What, that technology will always eventually turn us into zombies?

Genocide - Yeah, but don’t forget it was technology that saved our asses in the end.

Baque - True, but if it weren’t for technology we’d never have been in this situation in the first place.

Tener - What, so you’re saying we should all just go back to the stone age before something like this happens again.

Baque - Of course not, I’m just pointing out a fact...

Puker - Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that front, but here’s something we can all drink to:

He raises a beer mug.

Senseless - Where’d you get that?

Puker - Here’s to technology: The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

He takes a swig while the rest of the crew look at him.

Tener - You just ripped that out of The Simpsons.

Garell - So what if he did? Stealing from one person is plagiarism, stealing from lots of people is good design.

Sa’lol - I wonder if we’ll regret not letting that zomborg ship finish off the Borg.

Senseless - It was heading for them when we left, it would have had ample time by now to damage the collective.

Sa’lol - Yeah but the zomborg were easily sidetracked, remember? If that ship just shut down in the middle of Borg space, maybe we really haven’t seen the last of them...

Mittens - Oh I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Lieutenant.

The camera goes to an empty region of space somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. A dead zomborg pyramid is slowly rotating in place. Three Borg tactical cubes and the Queen’s Diamond slowly approach it. The camera goes to the throne room, where the Queen is coordinating the salvage mission.

Queen - Finally... with this new technology, particularly the hyperwarp drive, we can finally stop contracting our work out to lesser races.

An overweight, under-motivated scraggy-looking construction worker walks up to her holding a PADD.

Foreman - Look, honey, I don’t control the Universe, and I ain’t got no way to predict all the obstacles we kept running into. Just be glad we got it done on time.

The Queen rolls her eyes and assimilates the guy, then turns back to the viewscreen as two drones drag the Foreman out of the room.

Queen - At last...

Suddenly, the room starts to shake.

Hive Mind - Unidentified subspace disturbance approaching at forty-seven trillion times the speed of light. Interception in three seconds.

The viewscreen quickly pans up just above the pyramid ship. Suddenly, there’s a blinding flash and a massive ship appears out of nowhere. There’s really no way to describe how big it is, except for this: It makes the Death Star look like a cat toy. Which actually wouldn’t be too far off because:

Hive Mind - Incoming communication.

The viewscreen changes to show the bridge of the massive ship, which is also massive, being about a cubic kilometre in size. Thousands of cat-like beings of various feline-like species are milling around working miniature control panels. One, sitting on a ornate throne and adorned with a latinum-plated collar, looks sternly at the screen. There is a tension in the air as the creator and the creation stare each other down for the first time in millennia. The camera goes into space and flies up above the massive ship, where the Borg cubes are nothing more than specs against the starscape. The camera watches as the cat ship simply beams the zomborg pyramid ship away into nothingness. Camera goes back to the throne room.

Leader Cat - ....Meow.

The three cubes and the diamond quickly jump to transwarp.

Scene 11 - The Celestial drops out of warp at the edge of the Vulcan system. Dozens of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships are there waiting for them. On the Celestial’s bridge...

Righteous - Horray! Open a channel to all ships.

Casey - Channel, like, open.

Righteous - There’s no need to fear: We’ve ended the zomborg nightmare once and for all. The Prophets are truly smiling upon us and the evil ones cower in fear of our combined might.

Casey - Like, they’re all, like congratulating us!

Righteous - Excellent, now maybe you can find it in your hearts to forgive us for creating the zomborg in the first place!

Everyone on the bridge let their jaws drop, unable to believe what they just heard. The camera goes to random bridges of random ships, where each captain, regardless of their empire of origin, is looking more and more pissed with each passing second. The red alert klaxon is blaring faintly in the background as Righteous starts to comprehend that no one but Admiral Spot and a few select others knew the true extent of their involvement with the radioactive mutant zombie Borg no-names from the bottom of deck 20.

Righteous - ...Whoops.

The End

(As credits roll, the camera watches as the USS Celestial flies as fast as it can away from the fleet which has just opened fire on them.)